


Everything You Touch

by innerglow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-06
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-06-06 15:45:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6760066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/innerglow/pseuds/innerglow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam thinks he ruins everything he touches and then he buys a cactus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything You Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Artwork at the end of the fic was commissioned from halliemadethis ([etsy](https://www.etsy.com/shop/HallieMadeThis) / [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/halliemadethis/)), thank you so much--it's beautiful!

 

Sam buys it shortly after everything he tried building on the west coast goes up in flames. It calls to him and he’s not even sure what it is about it that makes his insides itch with need, but he’s picking it up and he’s carrying it to the cash register, his funyuns and coke being left behind on the same shelf he found it on.

“The fuck is that?” Dean scoffs in the drivers seat.

Looking down, Sam sees the sharp spine of the cactus and he finds his lips curling into a smile.

“Dunno.” And it’s the truth. It baffles him as it must baffle his Brother, whose eyes are burning holes into the side of his face.

Dean raises his eyebrows and sighs, his lips twitching around words he wants to say, but somehow deciding it’s best to not press the issue further. Because after all, grief can make people do weird things. And well, if this is how Sam needs to cope, than so be it.

For hundreds of miles, the cactus comes with them everywhere they go. It’s propped up on the dash of the car, where it remains when they’re on the road, the sun tending to it across every state line they travel. And when they make pit stops, Sam is more concerned with making sure it’s watered properly, than making sure he’s fed himself. When they find a place to hang up their gear for a few days, it comes with them, too. Dean finds it on nightstands and bathroom counter tops, sometimes he’ll see it on the windowsill catching some sun and he’ll always sigh in exasperation. But through it all, he doesn’t ask and Sam doesn’t say a word about it. It just becomes a new chapter in the dysfunctional book of their lives.

It’s not until a few months later when they’re about a hundred or so miles out of Colorado, that the cactus mystery starts to get a little clearer for them both.

“Dean! Stop!” Sam’s hand clamps fiercely around Dean’s shoulder, his fingers digging painfully into muscle.

Dean looks over, completely startled, his left hand tugging on the steering wheel and almost veering them into oncoming traffic. “What? What is it, Sam?” And before he can even get irritated about the outburst, he’s greeted by the horrible sight of Sam’s tears. “Sam?” He asks again, this time more delicately.

“We have to go back, Dean! We have to, please!” The words come tumbling out of Sam’s mouth, his breath catching on an ebb of panic. “Please, Dean– _please_.” Sam rings his hands, his eyes distracted with something on the dashboard.

Dean pulls over, easing the impala to a stop and simultaneously follows Sam’s gaze to the empty spot where the cactus should be. “You forgot it? The cactus? Is that what this is all about?” And Dean should be sorry for the wave of irritation that paints his last question, but they’re losing time and they have a hunt in Arizona that needs their attention.

“I know, it’s dumb–its so dumb, but Dean, please.” Sam’s voice is strained and lost in the back of his throat. “I can’t lose this, I can’t lose it.”

“We can get you another one, Sammy–c’mon. It’s fine.”

“NO!” Sam shouts, and then mutters an apology, his shaking fingers coming to card themselves nervously through his loose hair. “I need this one, it has to be this one–I need it.”

“Sam, it’s a cactus. A cactus. Arizona will have a ton of them, I promise.” Dean rambles on, “I’ve let you haul that thing around for the last couple of months and I haven’t said a word about it–but I’m telling you–you’re out of your mind if you think–”

Sam is out of the car and pacing steps back in the direction they came from. It happens so fast that Dean has to blink a few times to register the empty seat next to him. His words hang in the air and he curses himself, because of fucking course he said the wrong things. And he’s muttering ‘fuck’ when he opens his own door, his legs making fast strides to catch up with his Brother.

“Sam, wait!”

Sam stills at the words and his hands ball up at his sides. His knees shake and then he’s falling to his knees, his long skinny frame falling like a pile of fallen leaves.

“Sam, you gotta talk to me man.” Dean whispers as he stills behind his mess of a Brother. “Tell me why this cactus is so important to you; I need to understand. I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it for months.” He rests his hand on Sam’s shoulder for comfort and to let him know that he’s being sincere.

“I–” Sam’s voice cracks with the heavy weight of an emotion he refuses to name. “I ruin everything I touch, Dean. Everything.” Sam faces his palms towards his face and shakes his head as he says the words. “Every goddamned thing in my life, it all falls apart and it’s because of me–because I’m…I’m a freak.”

“Hey,” Dean says quietly, his fingers curling around Sam’s shoulder and squeezing. “Stop, Sam… that’s not true.”

“Mom? Dad? Jess?” Sam hisses every name into the air and turns his head to stare the words over his shoulder and into the back of Dean’s head. “You?” He adds and his throat tightens around the thought of being the match that destroys the one person he loves most in the world.

“Sammy….” Dean works out of his mouth, his chest aching for the weight of the world his little Brother seems to carry.

“I know it sounds silly, but I love that thing. It gives me hope that not everything I come in contact with will die. I have control of it, I can ensure that it survives–that not everything that touches these hands is condemned to wilt away. Because, I can’t do that again, Dean. Jess? I can’t, Dean. I can’t live with myself if I–”

Dean finds himself on his knees in front of Sam, his arms meaningfully wrapping around the weight of Sam’s body. “I get it, Sammy–I get it. Jesus. I get it. I’m sorry, I should have known. I should have guessed what it was about, but I didn’t, fuck-m’sorry okay, Sammy?” He tugs Sam’s chest tightly against his own and he feels as their racing hearts beat together.

A few seconds pass, before Sam’s sniffles calm and his own arms find themselves up and around Dean. And even though the fear of ruining his Brother is still alive and well, he only tightens the embrace.

“We’ll go get it, okay?” Dean promises as he pulls back to look into his Brother’s eyes. “But you gotta promise me that you stop doing this to yourself. Yes, shitty things have happened and they always will, but it’s not your fault–it’s never your fault. I don’t care what you try to convince yourself, but your hands–these hands…” Dean wraps his hands around Sam’s, “They are clean. Do you understand me?”

Sam looks down at his hands wrapped up in the calloused and strong fingers that belong to his Brother and he wants to argue, but he lets the words die in the back of his throat. His Brother’s eyes are bright and clear and soaked in utter honesty and Sam can’t help but find his chest sighing with relief. Because if Dean is saying this, it must be true–no matter what his mind has tried to convince him of. “I–I understand.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

__

He finds it right where he left it, sitting on top of the tv in the hotel room they had left behind earlier that day. And when he sees that it’s still alive and green, he truly breathes for the first time in hours.

He picks it up and gives it a look over and is almost out the door when he stops in his tracks. Looking down at it, he lifts his right index finger to the spines of the cactus and feels the prick against the pad of his flesh. It’s just enough to have him pulling away, but not enough to draw blood. And when he sees his smooth finger, he can’t help but find himself smiling.

“I’ve gotcha, won’t let anything bad happen to you.” Sam whispers to the little cactus in his hands.

“ _I promise_.”

 


End file.
